Orion to Soar Into Space This Week for a NASA Social

This Thursday, at 7:05 a.m. EST, the launch window for NASA’s Orion will open and – weather permitting – it will lift off aboard an enormous ULA Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral for its maiden voyage into space. The event will be broadcast live on NASA TV starting at 4:30 a.m., and I’ll also be live on site watching from the causeway at Kennedy Space Center as part of a NASA Social event. As they’re saying on Twitter, #ImOnBoard!

Orion is NASA’s next-generation human spaceflight vehicle, built by Lockheed Martin to allow astronauts to one day travel farther than ever before… beyond low-Earth orbit to the Moon, asteroids, and Mars. Designed to ultimately launch aboard the upcoming Space Launch System of rockets, Orion’s uncrewed EFT-1 launch this week will send it into orbit 3,600 miles above the Earth to test its flight, reentry, and splashdown capabilities.

Follow the launch on Twitter at hashtags #DeltaIV and #EFT1, and follow me on Instagram for some pics from KSC and the launch site too!

But don’t forget that for EFT-1 launch, as for the module of service which, let us reminds it, will be for the inhabited flights supplied by the European Space Agency (built by Space Airbus Defence and), it is replaced in this particular case by a model in the scale…
Jeff Barani from Vence (France)

Reblogged this on Reasonable Rants and commented:
NASA planning a Mars mission (with humans) for 2030. Not sure I’d be getting on that flight… I’d LOVE to see Mars with my own eyes, but would like to feel 100% confident I’d survive the 150-300 day journey in space. No one can send help if something goes wrong…